Alice Duer Miller Poems

I
I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply
...

THERE is a willow grows beside a pool;
Its long gray branches sweep the marble rim;
And from those waters shadowy and cool,
The stars shine, large and dim.
...

At dead of night about the dying fire
They told a story how the dead appear;
And men, grown still with fear,
Forgot their old desire
...

I WANTED you to come to-day­
Or so I told you in my letter­
And yet, if you had stayed away,
I should have liked you so much better.
...

Her old love in tears and silence had been building her a palace
Ringed by moats and flanked with towers, he had set it on a hill
...

COURAGE to ask of love neither sign nor token,
Wisdom to wait, silence and faith are better;
Fear, not alone lest the bond be some day broken,
But, that love, too desperately dear, become a fetter.
...

AN equal love between a man and woman,
This is the only charm to set us free,
And this the only omen
Of immortality.
...

MAGIC for fitful souls whose aim is still
Pleasures that forfeit not the mansions blest,
Who deem themselves absolved to approve the best .
While they, protesting hate, pursue the ill;
...

IN this still cloister where the roses grow
Waist-high between the arches and the well,
You would have walked a thousand years ago,
So faithful, who are now so infidel;
...

YES, you have guessed it. Do not blame me, dear.
Indeed, I did not dream, 0 tender eyes,
When first we met, that in a little year
My words would dim you with pain's dumb surprise.
...